


As Plain as the Bumps On Your Face

by She5los



Category: FFXV - Fandom
Genre: 17-year-old Iggy would be worse, 22-year-old Iggy is held together with anxiety and kitchen twine, Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Chronic anxiety, Feelings, Gen, He's using Retin-A btw, Hurt/Comfort, It can turn your skin really red and dry for a while especially for the first couple of months, Panic Attacks, Teenage Insecurity, Teenagers, acne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 04:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13356999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/She5los/pseuds/She5los
Summary: Ignis Scientia is the Royal Advisor to the Crown Prince of Lucis and, at seventeen, the youngest page in the Royal Council.  He does a good job in all of his roles, from taking notes on legislation and policy to retrieving his charge from house parties.  And he can definitely handle the panic attacks.  It really isn't as big a deal as everyone's making it out to be.





	As Plain as the Bumps On Your Face

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to Selador for her side-story where Noctis attends a house party, albeit in an AU: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11853750/chapters/26924601
> 
> Also to Tyn for beta-ing and saying lots of kind things about my work!

“Good morning, Ignis,” his psychiatrist said as Ignis sat down on the (hideous) green couch that was supposed to look modern or sleek but only managed to look mass-produced.  He set his messenger bag on the floor and reached for one of the squeeze balls set out in a candy dish on the end table so he’d have something to do with his hands.  “How have you been this week?”

 _It’s absolutely none of your business,_ he wanted to say, but he couldn’t just be _rude,_ so he mashed the ball in his right hand, smiled politely, and said, “Rather well, considering.  I’m sure you saw that house party incident on the news, but as soon as Noctis was returned to the Citadel, my job was done.”  And he’d only had a panic attack after, when he was alone and Noctis was safe, so it at least had only interfered with his sleep, not his duty.

“How have your panic problems been?” his psychiatrist asked, because he was a dick.

“Manageable.  I haven’t had to use my medication all week.  I have nothing at all to report about my current mental state.”  He hadn’t when he’d started seeing his psychiatrist, either, and quite frankly, he loathed having to see one, but apparently a seventeen-year-old having panic attacks as a result of the job he’d been destined for since childhood was ‘worrying’ and ‘unacceptable’ and ‘more than can be expected of anybody,’ and _apparently_ the solution to that unacceptable problem was to push a course of treatment at him that he hadn’t asked for and didn’t want.

His psychiatrist nodded and wrote something down.  “Are you really certain you don’t want some help finding someone you could talk to more easily?” he asked.  “I really do want to help you.  I’m not sure why you don’t want to accept help, and it isn’t for me to know unless you want to talk about it, but I do understand the gravity of having panic attacks in your everyday life and I want you to get the help you need.”

“I can’t pretend I’d be more amenable to talking to someone else,” Iggy admitted.  “I did make a list of side effects I’ve been experiencing from the daily medication, and I’d like to know if any of it is unusual or worrying.”  He pulled his journal out of his messenger bag, flipped to the appropriate page, and handed it over.  There was no context in which he’d be willing to talk about his symptoms beyond a cursory once-over of things an outsider could observe (like the panic attacks that had sent him to therapy in the first place), but the mechanics of using common antidepressants to control his general anxiety, and the physical effects they had on his body, were entirely appropriate things to discuss with the man who’d prescribed the medication in the first place.

The doctor looked over the list.  It wasn’t his fault Ignis hated him; if it had been Iggy’s idea to seek therapy, they probably would have got on just fine.  Finally, he looked up and said, “They seem normal enough, but are any of them troubling you?”

“The headaches are annoying, but they’re easily sorted with over-the-counter pain medication.  They aren’t very strong.”  And he _had_ seen a lot of improvement in his mood and overall number of panic attacks since he’d started using the medication, so it was well worth it.

More writing on that tacky yellow legal pad.  “Are there any other side-effects you’d like to talk about?  Perhaps ones that surprised you, or ones to do with your mood?”

Iggy shrugged.  It would have been seen as incredibly rude in most other contexts at the Citadel, and he hoped his psychiatrist understood that he was playing up Uncooperative Teenager tropes intentionally.  “Not particularly.  As long as they’re reasonably normal reactions to this medication, and not a sign that something’s going wrong, they don’t bother me much.  It does seem to be working entirely adequately.”

“When you say that, you mean that you’ve been having less anxiety than before?”

“Yes.”  He said this with a firm nod even though his psychiatrist wasn’t looking up.

The man smiled.  “Good.  I’m glad to hear it.  I know you said you didn’t use it this week, but do you have any questions or concerns about your panic medication?”

“No.  I’ve been carrying a small supply with me, as you suggested, and I researched it thoroughly since I know it can be addictive.”  It did help bring him down from the truly horrible ones, and that was what he needed from it.  It had entirely normal side-effects that he certainly had no objections to in light of the benefit he received from it, and he suspected he would barely have noticed them if he hadn’t read about them first and known what to anticipate.

“But you’re satisfied with it?”

“Yes, entirely.”  He’d told him that before.  He supposed many people tended to be imprecise and nonspecific, and perhaps wouldn’t know what they wanted, so their opinion of something might change with no new input, but if he’d been uncertain before, he would have said, and he hadn’t been satisfied-pending-further-consideration before; he’d just been satisfied.

They continued on for the full fifty-minute session.  His therapist tried to ask about his friends as a way to get him to talk about himself, but unfortunately for him, Iggy was smarter than practically anyone he knew and had been raised to understand that sort of sideways conversation and anticipate it, so he could easily talk about Noctis sneaking out to a party or Gladio showing off during training and then deflect as soon as it came to talking about himself, which had been his pattern since they’d begun and thus gave away nothing more than his unwillingness to participate in therapy, which was nothing new.  He received the same counsel as before, that he should seek out someone in his life, particularly an authority figure, who he could more readily discuss his problems with.  He’d almost laughed the first time his therapist said that, over a month ago now, because it had brought up images of him trying to discuss his worry spirals and deepest fears with his uncle.  He couldn’t imagine anything less appropriate.  His uncle had seen him during a panic attack once, and talked him down and soothed him, but this was the same man who’d taught him proper decorum for the Royal Court, the man who’d taught him to hide his feelings in the first place.  Iggy deeply hoped he’d never have to trouble his uncle that way again, since it had been embarrassing for both of them.

As far as Ignis was concerned, the whole issue was probably just him being young and inexperienced, and would go away with time as he grew into his role.  It was nothing to worry about in the long-term, since all his fears were as unreasonable as they were unsettling.  He could fear that he wasn’t good enough or that nobody would ever take him seriously until his heart raced and he hyperventilated, but that didn’t change the fact that he was already a page in the Royal Council and did a more than adequate job keeping an irresponsible young prince more or less contained.

He left the session feeling only slightly more annoyed than when he’d gone in.  He used to find the whole ordeal rather trying, but now he understood that it really _wasn’t_ his psychiatrist’s fault that he had been obligated to seek therapy.  It was a farce put on for the Royal Council, and he could certainly continue going to sessions if it meant keeping his job as Prince’s Advisor.

He supposed, thinking about it, that he did have an authority figure to talk about his worries with, though it was a distinctly different (if related) worry and the medication he received from her had so far had only side effects without actually working at all.

He went to the garage and drove into town to see his dermatologist.

It was truly, deeply demoralizing to watch the people around him.  Noctis barely cared for his skin and only ever had a maximum of three zits at a time.  Gladio had a bit more, but he’d seen the Shield start a regimen of over-the-counter salicylic acid treatment a week before the winter ball and show up fresh as a daisy.  Ignis was cursed with a face (and a back, but no one could see that, so it didn’t matter) that was covered in acne no matter what he did, and he did everything he was instructed to and more.

He sorted out some emails while he waited for his appointment.  Noctis was still being petulant about being grounded.  Gladio had some questions about how the grounding might impact Noct’s training schedule, which Iggy easily answered.  Then he returned to Noct’s messages and responded, reminding him that it was for his safety and it didn’t befit a prince to lie about something that impacted his safety.  He reminded him of the trouble Gladio could have been in, since he’d already pointed out the danger of going out alone.

And then he was called in to see his dermatologist.

“Good morning, Iggy,” Dr. Pellis greeted him.  “How are you today?”

“Well enough,” he told her as he set his bag down and sat in one of the chairs.  “Noctis tried to go to a house party unchaperoned, as you may have seen in assorted tabloids, so now he’s very upset to be grounded.  Shockingly, though, life goes on.”

That certainly won him a smile.  “Still the voice of responsibility, then?”

Iggy smiled and rolled his eyes.  “Always.  Um.  I was looking through my journal, and I noticed it’s been almost three months since I started this medication.  It’s supposed to start working soon, right?”

“It looks like it already is,” Dr. Pellis told him.  “There’s a bit less than there was last time, and there should be a lot less the next time we see each other.  You’ve been keeping up with it, using it daily?”

“I’ve done everything you told me to.”  And didn’t that just sound pathetic and desperate?  “I came up with some more strategies to keep me from touching my face.  Or.  Don’t get me wrong; I don’t anyway.  But some things that make it easier.  And I read it can help to switch out your pillowcase every day, so I’ve been doing that.”

He couldn’t look at her, but his eyes felt swollen and her hand was on his shoulder, which always happened when he started crying.  Crying just _happened_ when he went to the dermatologist; the first two he’d tried had freaked out on him, and he’d been too embarrassed to go back, but Dr. Pellis was wonderfully reassuring.  “You’re almost there,” she told him.  “And, I promise, you really don’t have to prove anything to me.  I believe you.  You’re doing all the right things.  I can really tell you’re motivated to do this thing; no one’s ever come to me with a complete catalogue of every date and time they touched their face in the last week.  You’re really doing fine, I promise you.”

“Why is it so hard for me?”  He’d asked before, but he’d never managed to find a satisfactory answer.  “Noctis eats garbage and doesn’t know what lotion is, and he’s immaculate.  Gladio’s goes away with the tiniest effort.  Why _me?”_   He sounded so whiny, so ungrateful – after all, Noct’s skin may be perfect, but his back and knee both gave him trouble – but he didn’t see Noctis’ health problems directly contributing to his perceived legitimacy.

“It’s just your body chemistry.  It’s really fine; it’s just that you’re comparing yourself to all these people who aren’t teenagers.  If you spent your day at school instead of the Royal Council, there would be plenty of people who looked just like you.”  The exact same reassurance he received every time, and it got less reassuring as his medications continued to _not fucking work,_ as if he had some alien, unknown dermal microbiome that refused to respond to normal humans’ medications.  No amount of ‘it’s your body chemistry’ was going to make the other pages and the Council members stop joking that he should be in school.

“That’s exactly the problem,” he countered, rather more emotion seeping into his voice than he’d intended.  “Other Council pages are at _least_ twenty-five and they’ve all cleared up.  I’m the only one in that room and I…  It’s like it doesn’t matter how much I’ve accomplished because all they see is this acne-faced _child_ who couldn’t possibly know anything about law or martial strategy.”

“Do you get that from your uncle?” Dr. Pellis asked.  “Or from your friends’ fathers?”  She always managed to avoid calling King Regis and Lord Clarus by their names; Iggy thought it made her uncomfortable.

“Of course not; my uncle trained me himself and His Majesty and Lord Clarus trust him implicitly.  They’ve also seen the amount of knowledge I’ve managed to cram into Noctis’ thick skull.”

“And they’re the ones running things, right?  The King and the Head Councilman are totally on your side in this.”

Iggy sighed.  He really, sincerely enjoyed having one doctor who wasn’t connected to the Citadel in any particular way, but it did make her a bit dense about how things actually worked.  “It isn’t that simple.  In the same way I can’t just say ‘I outrank you’ and be done with things, if I want anyone to take my work seriously, they need to take _me_ seriously.  No one can just command them to do so.  There’s a reason I was only allowed to take minutes after I started wearing these glasses.  I’m sure you have a keen understanding of how superficial people can be.”

Dr. Pellis laughed.  Another of her good qualities; his psychiatrist had never once laughed in front of him, even after several sessions of attempting jokes.  “Yeah, I guess I’d only have half as much to do if I didn’t let teenagers come in and cry at me.”

“Plural?  You mean there are other teenagers whose skin stresses them out?”  His eyes still felt warm and a little swollen, but he did enjoy having someone to appreciate his humor.

She snorted.  “Maybe not with the same stakes as you, but absolutely.  How _is_ the stress part, by the way?  Because that does seem to be one of your acne triggers.”

 “I’ve been keeping up with my anxiety journal,” he told her.  He pulled the same journal he’d shown his psychiatrist out of his bag and flipped to a different page.  “My psychiatrist has me on an antidepressant which works fairly well, and I’ve kept a log of when I get stuck worrying, with or without a panic attack.  I know I said it last week, but you were really entirely correct; it’s helped me identify patterns of specific things I worry about, and it’s very helpful.  For example, before, I told you half my worrying was about Noctis, but really, I think a good portion of that was worrying that people would think I was incompetent because of the ways Noctis acts out, which is much easier to discuss with him.  Perhaps once he’s gotten over being grounded, though.”  It had also helped to start numbering his mood on a scale of one to five, especially after he’d worked out how to define each number.  He’d already told her how great that was, though.

“I’m glad.  Have you been talking to your therapist?  Sounds like there’s a lot you could share with him.”

Iggy shook his head.  “Not particularly.  And it’s nothing I could fix by seeing someone else, because I’m angry at the Council, not the doctor they incidentally assigned me to.”  Dr. Pellis was always gently suggesting that he should find a therapist he was comfortable with, or a way to connect with his therapist, but he hated talking about feelings.

The fact that he would even talk about feelings (and cry in front of near-strangers, even with patient confidentiality) if it meant he could help his acne was a good indicator of just how badly he wanted clearer skin.

In the end, his dermatologist’s advice was more or less “keep doing what you’re doing,” which was equal parts disappointing and reassuring.  Disappointing because he could barely handle waiting for his medication to work after three months, and reassuring because at least there wasn’t any part of his skin hygiene routine that was lacking.

Lunch that day was with his uncle, which was fortunate because he hadn’t bothered to put on nice clothes for just morning training and doctor appointments, so he was in a light sweater rather than anything even tangentially related to formalwear.  He could certainly wear that to see family.

His uncle’s housekeeper answered the door.  She was a warm, sweet older woman who seemed to be getting shorter by the month.  “Good morning, Your Grace,” she greeted him in her Leide accent.  “Well, aren’t you growing into a charming young man?  Emphasis on ‘growing’ there.”  He couldn’t recall a single time she’d failed to call him by his title, even when he was little, but he also couldn’t recall a time when she’d let the difference in their status create any kind of rift between them.

“It’s good to see you, too, Myra.”  He leaned down to hug her (always obligatory, probably since she’d known him as a child) and felt some of the tension leave his chest as he did so.  “Is my uncle home?  We were going to meet for lunch.”

“He was right in his study, last I saw him,” she told him.  “You just come along, and tell me what happened Friday night; I’m dying to know.”

Iggy smiled.  “You already got all the juicy details out of my uncle; don’t pretend you didn’t.”

Myra shook her head.  “Now’s when you take the opportunity to tell me all about your heroics.”  She winked at him.  “You’re the one who picked him up, after all.”  They were almost at his uncle’s study, but he had the feeling she’d sit with him for however long the story took.

…Which was just what you’d do for a child, and as much as Iggy liked feeling appreciated, he was rather sensitive about people talking down to him, even when they only meant it as a kindness.  “I only took the word of the Kingsglaive who followed him,” he said sheepishly.  “Then I delivered him to Gladio and went to bed.  I’ll have to talk to Public Relations before I tell you any more; terribly sorry, but you know that’s how it goes.”  She also knew he’d skirted the rules more than a couple times to give her juicy gossip, since she just enjoyed knowing all the goings-on at the Citadel and was supremely unlikely to actually tell anybody embarrassing stories about major political players.

She was, of course, far too clever for her own good, having known him since he was a child and also having spent a considerable time around the same man who’d taught Iggy most of his conversation skills in the first place.  She frowned and asked, “Still having a rough time of it, are you?”  She put a hand on his shoulder and stage-whispered, “I’ll make sure those amarettis you like are set out for dessert.”

“Myra, you’re a blessing,” Iggy told her, and took the hand on his shoulder and held it firmly for a moment before proceeding into his uncle’s study.

When he walked in, his uncle Tellus was poring over a recent bill, marking it up in at least two colors of pen.  “I told you,” he murmured without looking up, quiet and casual, “I’ve quite a bit to do and my nephew is visiting for lunch.”

“I certainly hope he is,” Iggy responded, smiling.  “Otherwise, I’ve saved my appetite up for nothing.”

His uncle looked up and smiled.  “Ignis!  Shiva’s toes, time does fly when you’re trying to decipher something so badly worded, doesn’t it?”

“Is that the new seismic code?  It took me two hours and about twenty Moogle tabs just to be able to understand it.  Fortunately, I found the supporting documentation rather less dense.”

Uncle Tellus shot a dirty look at the offending papers and then stood and came around his desk to lead Iggy out of the study.  “You’ll have to stop growing like this,” he said, getting back to a friendly, familiar chat instead of the linguistic hellscape that was the newest building code update.  “You’ll be taller than Clarus, and he won’t be happy with that at all.  He’ll have to pass a law about it.”

“He’ll have to do something about Gladio first,” Iggy pointed out.  “He’s consistently had at least ten centimeters on me ever since the whole ‘growth spurts’ debacle started.”  With ‘debacle,’ in this case, naturally meaning ‘normal life event.’

“Other Amicitias get exemptions,” his uncle quipped back.  “After all, he had a hand in making Gladio; if the boy’s too tall, he has only himself to blame.  That’s why all the other pages are older than you: being from a good family and studying law is only one requirement.  The other is that you have to be done growing so Lord Amicitia can continue being the tallest in the room who knows what all the fancy words mean.  He gets enough of people being taller than him with the Crownsguards and Kingsglaives.”

Iggy smiled and ducked his head.  He was more than ready to be done with growing and everything that went with it, from his clothes never fitting right to all the uncomfortable _feelings_ that came with puberty, and he was especially ready to have a face that people didn’t mock the moment they thought he was out of earshot, but just continuing to grow took literally no effort on his part and people always seemed so proud of him for it.

“Has Noctis been manageable?” Tellus asked.  “I understand he’s under extra guard and a few restrictions after that sneaking-out incident, and I know he can be a bit of a handful when he doesn’t get his way.”

“He’s been as much of a nuisance as he can manage,” Iggy said.  “Neither Gladio nor I are having any of it, so he should stop soon.  He tries to act desolate, but we both know he’s texting Prompto almost nonstop, so it isn’t exactly convincing.”

Iggy’s uncle shook his head and sighed.  “He’ll grow up someday,” he said.  “In the meantime, we’re all set up for tea on the patio, and as I recall, you have very little scheduled into your afternoon.”

“I was hoping to look over some more legislation, since the building code took so long,” Iggy said.  “I can do that just as well here as at the Citadel, if you’d like company.”

“I would love that,” his uncle Tellus said.  “Oh, and you saw your therapist today, didn’t you?  How’s that going?”

Iggy shrugged and didn’t let any of his distaste show on his face.  “I show up on time,” he said, purposely skirting around the subject.  “I stay for the full fifty minutes.  We discuss treatment options I’ve elected to use…”  He shrugged again to show he was done speaking.

His uncle’s voice was much quieter and gentler than before when he said, “It isn’t a punishment, Iggy.  I know it was pushed on you with a heavy hand, but it isn’t meant to feel like an obligation; it’s meant to give you more support, help you take care of yourself.”

“You don’t believe that,” Iggy accused, trying to keep his voice casual.  “It’s a balm for any Council members who feel guilty for things that aren’t their fault.  It has nothing to do with what I actually want or need.”  Iggy had come to peace with that soon after the decision was made.

“I didn’t invite you here to fight with you.”  His uncle’s arm rested solidly across his shoulders.  “I worry about you, Ignis.  I can’t tell you how dear you are to me.  If there’s anything you think would help with your nerves, don’t hesitate to pursue it; you’ll have my full support.”

“I probably _should_ take it more seriously.”  He really was a wreck, wasn’t he?  Even that much was difficult to say out loud.  “My dermatologist has stressed that my anxiety is only making my acne worse.”  He’d still like to keep everything related to his feelings away from his uncle, though.  And pretty much everyone else.  He had a chronic problem of oversharing with dermatologists, but otherwise, he was very proud of the way he held himself together and kept his problems from impacting anyone else.

His uncle nodded like he’d just understood something profound and relevant, and said, “If it’s any help, your mother had the same problem.  So I can tell you with full confidence that the number of other seventeen-year-olds who actually care whether you have acne is near zero.  I certainly had to pull her away from plenty of… entanglements before our parents could find out.” And didn’t the way his uncle coughed quietly before the word “entanglements” just tell him everything he never needed to know about his dead mother’s pre-marital sex life?  “She worried and worried about it, but since every teenager is so busy worrying about their own skin, I don’t think they ever actually notice anybody else’s.”

So, in other words, his uncle had understood nothing either profound or relevant about Iggy’s problem.

“Most of my concerns at the moment aren’t really romantic in nature,” Iggy said as he and his uncle sat down to a delicious-looking afternoon tea.  He settled his napkin in his lap and picked up the bottle of something pale and sparkling sitting on the table.  “Does this have alcohol?  I’m afraid I can’t, at the moment.”  He didn’t recognize the stamp, and the writing was all in highland Accordan.

“It’s an herbal tonic.  I think you’ll enjoy it,” his uncle told him, so Iggy poured some for both of them, and then cups of tea.  “Are we really going back to treating this as a guessing game?  I do mean it when I say that, if there’s anything you think would help, just tell me and I’ll have it arranged.”

Iggy still hadn’t figured how to get out of this type of question.  It was like the final boss in one of Noctis’ videogames: there had to be some way to brush off his uncle’s concern without saying anything that would make him worry more, but Iggy couldn’t find it.  Of the paths he saw laid out before him, he chose to walk the one where he said, “It really isn’t anything you need to concern yourself over” and deal with his uncle’s incredulity or indignation.

He wasn’t expecting Tellus to look hurt.

“Iggy, you’re seventeen,” his uncle said quietly.  “You’re a very accomplished young man, but it’s my job to keep you safe until you learn how to do that yourself.”

“I’m perfectly safe,” Iggy countered.  “Ask Gladio: I have proficiency in every common-issue weapon and excel with knives and lances.  I was in the top tenth percentile for my year, in fact.”

“I’m talking about the panic attacks,” Tellus clarified.  He breathed deeply; if he was anything like Iggy, and Iggy knew he was, he would have preferred to avoid getting into feelings so deeply.  “And, more specifically, I’m talking about how you hid them for so long.  Your health isn’t something you should feel the need to hide.  When your asthma acts up, you seek treatment, and from what I’ve read, panic attacks can be just as tiring.”

“I do always seem to end up unable to breathe, don’t I?” Iggy asked, trying to steer the conversation away from his feelings and concerns.  The asthma was a result of the fire that had killed his parents and almost everyone he’d known as a five-year-old.  He still hated the smell of smoke, even when it wasn’t strong enough to make him cough.

“Iggy, I’m the one who _taught_ you how to distract somebody from the topic they’re set on,” his uncle reminded him.  “I know you’re doing it on purpose.  I’m sure you’re able to talk circles around your therapist, but I care about you and I’ve been practicing rhetoric for longer than you’ve been alive.”

“My therapist’s been in this rather a long time, too,” Iggy pointed out.  “He’s just an idiot.”

“Clearly, if your dermatologist knows more about your anxiety than he does.”

“Dermatologists have an exemption,” Iggy joked, trying to bring his uncle’s mind back to the jokes about Clarus.  “You remember how much trouble I had finding one.”

Tellus chuckled.  “What, were you looking for one with a psychology license?”

“Fortunately, no.”  It was a near thing, though.  “I think any dermatologist who works with teenagers has to deal with a bit of that.”  She’d as much as told him that herself, hadn’t she?

“Perhaps I could raise the topic to your therapist,” Tellus said, clearly intending to make a joke.  It felt like a threat.  “Suggest he discuss your skin if he actually wants to get anywhere.”

“If it were him doing it, I doubt he’d get anywhere,” Ignis parried.  Fuck.  Did he sound lighthearted enough?  Or was he transparently exposing all of his fears?

His uncle frowned.  Not good enough.  He fucked it up, he fucked it _up._   Now they were going to get to the bottom of things, no matter how little Iggy wanted to.

“Ignis, are you alright?” his uncle asked, no longer jovial.  “I didn’t mean to strike a nerve.  I would never interfere in your treatment like that; I hope you understand that.”

“Perfectly fine,” Iggy said, and forced a small smile.  He had the strangest sensation of falling.  He worried his voice was shaking.  “But do we really need to talk about this?  I’ve covered it rather thoroughly all morning.”  He felt ill, but that was nothing new.

“Of course.”  The ease with which he got Uncle Tellus to back down told him more than he wanted to know about the state he was in.  “My apologies; I only meant to reassure you that I support your efforts to heal, not make things worse.”

“I’m a fairly private person,” Iggy pointed out.  He felt trapped; he couldn’t tell the truth, but he desperately wanted his uncle to know he wasn’t just being avoidant for its own sake.

“You know I am, as well,” Tellus noted, “But some concerns are too big to shoulder yourself.  You’ll keep twenty browser tabs open so you can Moogle construction and geology terms, but you won’t spend one hour a week on your illness?  You put more energy into your skin troubles than your panic attacks, and that’s incredibly worrying to me.”

“I think my concern,” Iggy said, trying to sound detached while his entire head screamed at him that it was juvenile and he would just push through it if he _really_ wanted to get better, “is that it might get worse before it gets better.”

Uncle Tellus shrugged.  “So take some time off.  Talk to Gladiolus and cut down to three days a week, or only half-days, and even if your nerves start to overwhelm you, you’ll have that cushion to fall back on.”  Yes.  A satisfactory conclusion; his uncle was smiling.  This problem had definitely been solved.

His problem of people thinking he was a freeloading, incompetent child who’d been boosted to his position through pure nepotism and couldn’t handle the work required of a page in the King’s Council would definitely be solved by confirming that he couldn’t handle his usual workload just because he had a small problem with anxiety.

“With His Majesty’s recent decline in health, Noctis needs as much support as we can give him,” Iggy pointed out.  “Gladio can’t focus on his safety _and_ Council meetings at the same time, especially with Noctis acting out so much recently.  I just don’t think it would be possible to take time off.”

Uncle Tellus swallowed a bite of strawberry-custard tart and inspected it as he asked, “So, what was said in the Council that convinced you you need to show such unwavering dedication?  And what did they say about your skin?  In short: who needs to start their journey in another direction, and how soundly should I kick them on their way out?”

Iggy closed his eyes.  Opened them again, and was fairly certain it was real life and not a dream, so he studied the painting on his teacup intensely instead of looking his uncle in the eye.

“I apologize if I came across as unable to handle the workload I’ve taken on,” Iggy said, hoping to put his uncle on the defensive, make him reassure instead of continuing to probe.

“I imagine you’re capable of considerably more, but that doesn’t remotely answer my question.”  Damn.  “I do intend to get to the bottom of this; you’ve had five weeks now to discuss it with the professional of your choice and you’ve chosen an idiot who won’t ever be able to convince you to deal with this.”

“What happened to not inviting me here to fight with me?” Iggy muttered, allowing himself a moment of belligerence.

“I reconsidered.  You do remember that I’m your legal guardian, don’t you?  You’re astoundingly responsible for your age, so I do try to give you an appropriate amount of freedom, but it seems to me the responsible thing to do is to help you stop having these attacks, even if it puts a strain on our relationship.”

His stomach felt entirely wrong and the back of his head throbbed and he had a sort of sickly feeling in his arms that usually meant he was going to have a panic attack later.  “If I can’t handle a couple offhand comments, I hardly deserve to be in the Council in the first place, do I?”  There, that was reasonable, right?  “The press has said far worse.”   He hated the admission hiding behind his words, that his whole emotional collapse _was,_ in fact, due to some callous comments from his uncle’s peers, but he was trapped.

There was a short pause before Tellus spoke again, during which Iggy refilled both their teacups and carefully inspected the patterning on his teaspoon.  “The press doesn’t get as close to you,” he said.  It was now exceedingly clear that he was aware of the implications of everything Ignis had said.  “They operate on public statements and guesswork.  They also have little to no effect on how well you’re able to do your job.  You don’t need to get along with them or save face; you only need to tolerate them and put on a show.  Of course it would be more hurtful coming from a colleague.”

Iggy took a bite from the corner of a stuffed pastry.  He chewed thoroughly and swallowed just to buy himself more time to think, even though all his thoughts swirled together into _you aren’t good enough_ and _you aren’t ready for so much responsibility._   He was about to speak again when Tellus added, “Anyway, this sort of thing is what anonymous complaints are for.  When it leads you to attacks of nerves like this, it’s well past the point of ‘he should have grown a thicker skin.’  It’s harassment, plain and simple, and I won’t stand for that sort of abuse coming from Lucis’ legislative arm.  One of the Council’s functions is to protect Lucis’ most vulnerable citizens, so if someone can’t manage to be halfway decent to one page, they deserve to be gone.”

“Perhaps I’m not ready to be a page in the first place,” Iggy pointed out quietly.  Maybe he’d been wrong when he thought he was ready.  Maybe that was why he could only manage to reach competence at the position, and not excel, and all his justification about how much extra support Noctis had needed recently was just to cover for his own inability.

“I don’t think I’ve ever known anybody more prepared for the position.”  Tellus said it matter-of-factly, as if he didn’t even need to reassure because it was simply true.  “Martyrdom is a bad look for you, Ignis; I wouldn’t recommend attempting it.  Just give me names and I’ll handle it.”

“I’m not looking for _vengeance,_ uncle; I’m looking to be taken seriously!”  Fuck.  _Fuck._   Now he’d gone and lost his temper and let on the topic of the comments that were still distressing him.  Tellus still looked patient and relaxed, and Iggy felt stretched thin.

“My point, if you care to listen, is that you do as good a job as any other page while also assisting Noctis, and your work is entirely serious,” his uncle reminded him.  “I can’t think of anything you’ve done that would deserve mockery.  In fact, Regis was shocked yesterday to hear you were still having your attacks because your service to Noctis has been as unwavering as your performance in the Council.  Naturally, he sends his apologies that Noctis was so difficult last week when you’re already dealing with so much.”

“I only had to drive him and Prompto home,” Iggy pointed out.  “If he were really trying to find trouble, he would have found someplace with journalists around.  It’s the sort of mistake any teenager is entitled to when they live such a confined life.”

He still wasn’t looking up, but he saw his uncle shrug out of his peripheral vision.  “You never know.  I know a teenager who’s lived an equally confined life and still manages to blame himself for problems that aren’t even his own fault.”

“Well, _excuse me_ if I don’t like being treated like an _acne-faced kid_ who stays attached to his uncle’s hip because he doesn’t have the experience to stand on his own!”  Iggy felt himself blanch like the exposed villain of a bad mystery novel.  There it was.  His uncle really was the best at rhetoric; he knew exactly how to get a rise out of Iggy and make him expose his most closely-held secret.  Iggy forced a small smile and said, “Well done.  You got to the heart of things.  I’ve been worrying myself to pieces over a…  Over the most obvious insult you can imagine.”  Was he shaking?  He thought he might be shaking.  “Anything else I can do for you while you have me flayed open like this?  Name of my first crush, perhaps?”

He heard his uncle take a deep breath.  “I’m sorry that was said about you,” Tellus told him, “And I’m sorry it hit you so deeply that you didn’t feel you could talk about it.  I understand why you would think that giving me the name of the person who said that would only prove them right.  But I need their name, Ignis, and I think you need this to be over so you can rest.”

Here he was at a crossroads.  He was going to have a panic attack whether he identified the person who had started the whole thing or not.  And he… Honestly, he _did_ frequently think that Council meetings would be less tense if he didn’t have to sit across from someone who he knew had no respect for him whatsoever.

“I’m only telling you this because a comment of that type has a direct effect on how Noctis is perceived,” he clarified, even though he knew he was playing right into his uncle’s rhetorical trap regardless.

“I understand.”

“The remarks were exchanged between Lord Ravataugh and Page Ellis.”

The admission kicked his heart into full gear and its pounding did nothing to help his headache.

“Thank you very much, Ignis.  I’m sorry I had to agitate you like that for us to be able to talk about this.”

“I’d have done the same for something important,” Iggy admitted.  “It may take me some time to forgive you, anyway.”

“That’s fair enough.  Are you able to eat, or shall we set something aside for later?”

“I’ll eat.”  Myra had put his favorites out, after all.  He’d felt mildly nauseous at all times for the past couple months, so he’d grown reasonably accustomed to eating anyway.

He picked up the filled pastry he’d been nibbling at earlier while his uncle started on a scone.  The filling was mushrooms and leeks, and it would have been divine without his anxiety-nausea.  “I may need to spend the night,” he warned, hoping the news wouldn’t be too unwelcome.  His uncle had wanted him to stay longer earlier, and Iggy couldn’t think of any events that evening, so hopefully it wouldn’t be a problem.  “I have a… particular type of anxious feeling, and I don’t want to drive until it’s passed.  And I probably shouldn’t drive directly after, especially if I need my medication for it.”

He saw the realization dawn on his uncle’s face, but all he said was, “Of course, you’re always welcome here.  Don’t worry yourself about coming to dinner if you aren’t up to it; I’ll have something sent up if you aren’t able to come down.”

Iggy swallowed around a bite of pastry-wrapped vegetables.  “What are your plans for Lord Ravataugh?”

Tellus smirked.  “Luckily for you, I’ve known him since we were young.  He had quite the… rebellious youth, shall we say?  As you know, I’ve never done anything remotely irresponsible in my life, so he’ll be easy enough to deal with.”

Iggy snorted; he’d heard all sorts of tales of his uncle’s youth, all of them a touch incriminating as far as high society’s stringent standards were concerned, so he must have something really good on Ravataugh.  He ducked his head and murmured, “Thank you.”  He hated calling in favors he hadn’t earned, but he already felt relieved that some kind of action was going to be taken.

Uncle Tellus reached around the table and touched Iggy’s arm.  “I think I’m the one who’s meant to thank you,” he said.  “I’ve been worrying over you for almost two months now, and now you’re letting me deal with this directly.  Everything is exactly as it should be, now have an amaretti or two and go take a nap.”

Iggy picked up one of the little cookies.  He loved the bitter almond flavor, balanced perfectly with sweetness; there was nothing better.  “I’ve barely eaten,” he pointed out.  He’d had one vegetable pastry and, now, half a tiny cookie.

“You’re not doing your best impression of being hungry, either,” Tellus told him.  “Do take a snack – the scones are perfect today, and sandwiches are always nice – but don’t feel you have to stand on ceremony.”  His uncle was already piling a meal’s worth of food onto a plate for him to take.  Iggy stood, feeling shaky, worrying that he would mess something up on the way to the guest room he usually used.  It was _time,_ clearly, but that was probably for the best; if the attack was mild, he could hole up while it happened, rest a couple hours, and still drive back to the Citadel before bed.

It wasn’t remotely mild.

His uncle walked him to his room, and thankfully didn’t notice that something was more wrong than usual, telling Iggy to call for help “when” it happened as if it hadn’t already started.  As soon as he was gone, Iggy put his plate down on the floor and fell onto his bed to sob, all his worries swirling around in his mind.  He felt pathetic for needing help with a normal-enough political conundrum, and pathetic for denying his uncle’s help for so long.  He was certain Lord Ravataugh would know it was Iggy who’d wronged him, and seek revenge forever, and also certain that Gladio considered him MIA and was sweeping the city for him.

He managed to get his phone out.  He did have a text from Gladio, but it only read, _Which of us is picking Noct up from school?_   He texted back to say he’d be delayed a few hours and kept not getting any response.  He knew Gladio must be training, since it was a little before one in the afternoon, but he couldn’t fight the worry that his absence had caused the Shield or Noctis to die or come to grievous injury.  It was all he could do to lie on the bed, gripping the comforter to ground himself while he hyperventilated.  He told himself it was just a panic attack, that he’d had them before, it was a spike of adrenaline that made you _feel_ like you were dying, but he was young enough and healthy enough that he shouldn’t die, and he certainly hadn’t had any sort of medical emergency with the previous ones.  This did nothing to actually convince himself that he would be alright once it passed.

He didn’t hear the footsteps in the hallway.  He hated himself for that as soon as he heard a soft knock and the door opening.  He looked over at the door and it was his uncle.

His panic spiked.  He’d meant to keep it hidden, maybe say he’d had a small anxiety attack and rested, but now here he was, unable to even breathe like a regular human being, and he’d disappointed his uncle by not reaching out when he needed help.  He turned his face away from the door so he wouldn’t have to see when Tellus’ expression turned from warmth to disappointment, and clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound of his breathing.

He felt the bed dip behind him as his uncle sat on it, and a hand rubbing up and down his shoulders.  “Would you like to use your medication?” his uncle asked quietly, and he didn’t sound disappointed, but it was only a matter of time.

Iggy nodded and patted the pocket where he kept his pill box.  His hands were shaking with nerves, his body was shaking from his breathing, and he had no hope of pulling the box from his pocket, opening it, and getting exactly one pill into his hand without spilling any.

He felt Tellus reach into his pocket, and seemingly instantly, a pill was pressed against his palm.  He swallowed it unquestioningly.  Was he losing time?  He knew he had to have contingency after contingency for losing time, knew it meant something else usually, but he couldn’t remember what and he felt so floaty and dissociated already.

He didn’t ask how long he was like that.  When he became aware that there was a world turning callously regardless of his own state, he checked his watch and timed the worst of the crisis at forty minutes.  It had felt like years.

He sat up so he wouldn’t have to keep lying in the same position he was in during the attack, and burst into tears. (When had he stopped crying?  Was there some stage of panic that was too intense for it?)

A strong, warm arm came to rest on across his shoulders and gently rub his arm.  “You’re getting there now,” Tellus reassured, keeping his voice gentle and soothing.  “This is all perfectly natural.  Just cry it out.  I’ll be right here.”  Had Tellus been talking this entire time?  Iggy wasn’t listening until just now.  He was so _rude,_ so astoundingly inconsiderate and self-centered—

“There, now, we can’t have your breathing picking up again,” Iggy’s uncle told him in that same quiet, calm voice.  He removed his hand from Iggy’s arm and began rubbing slow, firm circles around the backs of Iggy’s shoulders.  “Can’t have that at all.  Let’s see if we can do something about that.”

He tried to slow his breathing, he _tried,_ but it felt like he was suffocating and his chest felt so restricted he couldn’t take in more than a small amount of air at a time, so he’d now failed at the one thing his uncle had asked him to do, because he was an awful nephew, because he was undeserving of help –

“Just a bit of a hiccup.”  Uncle Tellus must be endlessly frustrated with him; why was he still acting so kind?  “You got yourself back to regular breathing before; you’re certainly able to do it again.”  He was still rubbing those slow circles, like Iggy wasn’t fucking this up, like he didn’t have the most disappointing nephew imaginable, who couldn’t even reach out for help from his guardian when he needed it.  “There you are, you’re already beginning to do better.”

It was clear his uncle was talking just to talk, and the tone _did_ help, along with the constant stream of words.  Iggy leaned over to sob into his uncle’s shoulder, as if he hadn’t already embarrassed himself enough, but Tellus just held him tight and ran a hand over the back of his hair.

 _Finally,_ after what was clearly hours but only timed out as another half-hour, Iggy was calm again.  He had a bit of a hitch in his breathing, still, but he wasn’t _broken_ enough to need to be held continuously.  He pulled away from his uncle, who had kept saying soft, soothing things at short intervals.

“Feeling better?” Tellus asked, producing a handkerchief that Iggy gladly took to wipe his eyes and face.

“Yes, much.  Um… Thank you.”  His entire soul cried out that he should be giving an apology, not thanks, but something told him it would be bad form to make his uncle brush off an apology after everything Iggy had already made him deal with.

“Think nothing of it.  You’ve no idea what lengths I’ve gone to for family emergencies.”  Tellus smirked a bit and added, “Especially with Matris and that ridiculous motorcycle.  Fretting over you for only an hour or two, with nowhere I need to be urgently, is somehow one of the easiest trials I’ve had in quite some time.  And I was… very pleased to see that you’re using my mother’s pill box.”

Fuck.  Yes.  His pill box.  The one he liked for being both much smaller and much more beautiful than the orange plastic tubes his medication came in.  The one that had, yes, belonged to Iggy’s grandmother, but then had been passed down to Iggy’s mother before he inherited it.  The one that must have reminded his uncle Tellus of his dead sister for the second time that day, because Iggy was an idiot and, apparently, also an asshole.

He removed his glasses and polished them with a dry section of the handkerchief so he wouldn’t compulsively apologize for something his uncle had just thanked him for.  If he stalled enough, maybe his uncle would just try to fill in the gap in the conversation.

It worked.  “Anyway, I’m sure you’re exhausted.”  Tellus stood up and Iggy vaguely remembered that he was actually pretty mad at him right now.  He wasn’t going to mention it to someone who was helpfully digging through the dresser to get him some pyjamas, though.  “Do you need anything?  Some water, perhaps some herbal tea?”

“Water will do nicely,” Iggy said quietly.  It wasn’t like he’d stopped feeling ashamed of everything that had happened; he’d just stopped crying over it.  He felt heavy, and the edges of his perception felt soft. Perhaps he could get some sleep and avoid this conversation even longer.

His uncle left and he thought to himself that, with his panic attacks hopefully starting to abate in the near future, he was really going to have to get a crack on at work; he’d felt useless for weeks, like he was struggling to do the bare minimum, and it was only a matter of time until somebody noticed.  Then his uncle came back and said, “With the matter of certain unspeakably rude individuals settled, should I talk to Regis about how to reduce your responsibilities?  So that you can recover, you understand.”  A glass was pressed into his hand and he held it still, not sure what to do after such a shocking question.

He could feel his stomach start to cramp up.  He smiled and said, “I assure you, it was never my workload that was so pressing.  I should be able to keep up again, now.”

Tellus frowned. “I’ve seen the way you work, Iggy,” he pointed out.  Yes, he _knew_ he hadn’t been staying up to his usual standard recently; that was going to be _fixed_ now, so why would his uncle bring up something that set all of Iggy’s nerves on edge?  “You do as much in five hours as most people manage in ten.  You deserve to have some time to relax and have fun.”

Iggy would happily have been anywhere else.  He knew his uncle wouldn’t believe him if he put his foot down and reiterated that he had agreed to do a job and was entirely capable of it, but agreeing would feel like admitting that he _wasn’t_ suited to his position.  He decided to change the subject.  He said, “I should get changed for bed” and reached for the pyjamas his uncle had set next to him on top of the covers.  “Thank you again for helping me through it.”

Tellus leaned over to kiss his forehead and then left.  It was going to be a long argument, trying to make his uncle and the king understand that it was, in fact, very important to him to be able to do the work he did.  That he felt accomplished when he sewed up all Noctis’ loose ends and aided the council, as well.  That keeping him from his job would only make him feel like a failure, a fraud, just the same way those stray comments had made him feel.

…Maybe he did need some therapy.

He dragged himself to his feet to remove his shoes and change his pants, and crawled under the covers, feeling drugged and heavy.  He expected to sleep badly.  He had the presence of mind to check his phone, and he had one text from Gladio and one from Noctis.  Gladio’s read, _Cool I’ve got your back_  and Noct’s read, _Hey G said you’re held up a while. Hope you feel better soon!_   He tried to think of something to text back, but his mind was foggy and he eventually gave up.

.-._.-._.-._

He woke up feeling groggy with a crick in his neck.  He wasn’t sure he felt any better than when he’d fallen asleep.  His pillow smelled like stale hair gel and he turned onto his back just so his face wouldn’t be touching that.

He took stock.  He felt worn out and emotionally exhausted, he’d probably gotten at least three new zits started from falling asleep without washing his hair, and caffeine would only help a couple of the problems he was having right now.  He was starving _and_ nauseous, but at least he didn’t have to leave the room for food.

Sitting up felt like a mistake.  He was so _creaky._   It still felt good to stretch, though, and he could blame his lack of coordination on his medication instead of the adrenaline crash, which was nice.

He finally checked his phone.  It was three in the afternoon and he had a text from his uncle: _I took notes on the domestic agriculture bill. Reasonably straightforward._   Then, soon before he’d woken up, _Also the Mendax v Township of Malmalam Thicket trial review._   Iggy could have cried with gratitude; he’d lost hours of work time to that panic attack and he wouldn’t have had it at all if his uncle hadn’t kept pestering him for names, so it was truly a helpful way to start making amends.

The thought kept trying to creep into his brain that this was exactly why a _kid_ like him wasn’t supposed to be in the Council in the first place, that he really did rely on Tellus for more than any reasonable person should expect and this was just the kind of thing that gave those people reason to say he was incompetent.  He did his best to silence those thoughts by reminding himself that he was a count in his own right and that he’d been doing the same for Noctis recently, while the King’s bad health had been taking up so much of Noct’s emotional energy, but he still felt a little childish for being grateful.

Iggy supposed that the only thing to do was to move forward.  The first order of business was that he’d hardly eaten since breakfast, so he pulled himself out of bed and went to retrieve the plate of sandwiches and baked goods he’d left next to the door.  Iggy’s uncle, bless him, had stuffed the scone full of clotted cream and apple butter, so Iggy sat at the writing desk and started on that while he dealt with the second order of business: updating his symptom journal.

 _Oct. 3 – anxiety attack, 1hr crisis +       cool down,_ he began, leaving space to fill in however long it took for him to stop feeling so absolutely miserable.  _Took medication.  Primary trigger: Uncle Tellus convinced me to tell him about my concerns re: the Council and who made those remarks.  Therapy and dermatologist appts. earlier in the day.  Slept 2hrs. after._

 _Primary worries: I am incompetent; I am childish; there is a common perception of me being dependent on my uncle for all of my political achievements; I will never be taken seriously in the Council; my inability to handle my workload while dealing with this level of anxiety makes me unsuited to these tasks._   He’d started leaning over the journal, almost protective of it, or secretive.  He straightened and took a break to have some more scone.  He’d finished it by the time he was ready to write again, and tried to sit up straight this time.  _Primary questions: why do I feel as much guilt from telling my uncle about Ravatough as I did about hiding it?  What action do I take to make me stop feeling like this?_   He stopped there and started on a sandwich because that was just getting too dramatic.  It was the sort of thing the teenage protagonist of a book written by a sarcastic middle-aged person might write, and Iggy refused to be cliché.  He looked over what he’d written again, wondering if he could reword it to sound less desperate while also being honest, and found that he couldn’t.

When it came down to it, he thought to himself, his problem was that he just felt terrible.  He’d managed to hit the nail on the head: he felt guilty about his actions no matter what they were, his self-perceptions had been the same for the four months he’d been keeping the journal, and he didn’t know how to make it stop.  He picked the book up and threw it against the wall, but it only helped for a second because some of the pages folded when it fell and he had to go pick it up and straighten them.

He went back to the desk and added _I am useless_ to his list of primary worries that fueled his panic attack.

Fuck.  He knew what to do.  He did.  But it involved swallowing his pride in a big way, so he was going to have to work himself up to it and make the call as impulsively as possible.

He took out his phone and scrolled to his therapist’s number.  It took an immense effort to push his doubts and worries out of his mind and just make the call.  He was half certain the man wouldn’t even answer, but then the dial tone cut off and he heard, “Good afternoon.”

Just saying a quick “hello” grated against his nerves and made him worry he was boing obnoxious or overreaching.  “I know I was there this morning, but I’ve… had a bit of a revelation, and I’d like to see you as soon as possible so we can begin an actual therapeutic relationship.”  His chest felt constricted in anticipation; why would he ask for this from the same therapist he’d been brushing off for weeks?  He probably hated Iggy, and that was why he kept suggesting Iggy see someone else.

“Are you alright, Ignis?  Are you safe?”  Yep, that was him: the patient who was so completely unable to open up, even for his own good, that calling to seek therapy from his therapist was only believable if he was actively panicking, or perhaps had become concussed.

Iggy took a deep breath, smiled slightly for the tone it leant his voice, and said, “I had a discussion with my uncle earlier.  We’ve come to an understanding, but I still feel… Terrible, I think is the best way to put it.  And I’d like to feel good, for once.  So it occurred to me that I do, in fact, have the resources to make that happen.  When can you see me?”  Slow breathing, deep in and deep out.  Then he’d be less likely to snap at someone he needed help from.

He wrote down the midday Tuesday time mechanically as he heard it, and promised to be there.  Then, once he’d hung up, he went to lie down again.  He’d only scheduled one appointment; it shouldn’t have had such a profoundly draining effect on him.  He was still tired, though.

He texted his uncle, _Thank you for the help.  I’ve scheduled a therapy appointment for tomorrow and I plan to actively participate this time._   Then he went and lay down again, taking the time to get his feet properly nestled in the covers.


End file.
